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Virgil Suárez 
Between the hammer and the anvil
and his hands, a crow with gnarled claws,
an echo of metal giving way, malleable
like human life. Since the triumph
of the revolution, he worked the same
job, this artistry of horseshoes, red-hot
metal, a plink-plink of the hammer
keeping rhythm with the cicada´s mate
call. He was a young man when he started,
now his back aches and is stiff as a cavilla,
each iron rod he shoves into the kiln
to soften it, to make it speak this history
of what a man chooses to do with his hands,
the horses, they walk better into the fields,
this land behind his back, rising, greening.
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